


The Sky Burns and the Woman Looks Up

by NothingTame



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 18:08:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7518059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NothingTame/pseuds/NothingTame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moments from the game, as our hero stumbles through them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sky Burns and the Woman Looks Up

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Bioware and all my writing is for fun, not profit.

Aia wasn't too keen on the undead that literally sprang up whenever she so much as rippled through puddles or stumbled into the marshy wet around them. She normally loved the rain, loved the smell of dampened earth and the growing green that came from it. But not here. Not in the Mire. 

It didn't matter that she'd been warned. A storm-mage didn't care, pfft, if the stupid zombie-things were dumb enough to stay in the water, they'd get zapped and so much the better. No more rotting, lumbering, falling-into-sticky-moldy-pieces of  _Dear Maker what IS THAT-?!_ to deal with. 

Until she tripped into another puddle. 

"C'mon, Darkie, it ain't so bad-" Varric began after what had to be the fifth fight in the last half hour. 

Aia silenced him with a scowl, an expression that didn't sit well in a face as round as hers. Varric told her she looked terrifying when she was lost in thought or focusing on something. He said her brows, lovely, sable black wings that they were, crinkled into something sinister instead of the marks of expression they normally were. He also said her eyes, bistre pools of warmth, glittered like stones, and her mouth, full and soft as it always seemed to be, drew down, hard. Since that slurred confession over Wicked Grace and a pitcher of Ferelden ale, Aia used it on him as often as she could. It was quite effective. 

And she wasn't the only one unsettled by the place.

"Wet, too wet," Cole started, rain dripping along the edge of his hat as he looked down at his hands. "-the sky won't stop and it's getting into my robes, makes my hair stick to the skin and Gods, I am made to handle cold weather but this is fu-"

" _Alright_ ," Aia snapped. "We'll head back to camp, let me grab this damn herb." She leveled a finger at the spirit, squinting at him balefully. "You. Stay out of my head today. It's not a nice place to be right now."

As the Iron Bull replaced his sword and helped Varric with the last of the bodies lying around, searching and dumping as was needed, Aia made her way to the rare, glowing Dawn Lotus growing serenely at the edge of the bog. There was a stump that ran along a rock, close enough that she needn't do much more than kneel on stone and lean out to harvest the flowers and seeds. It was slippery but she managed, leaned against one hand braced on the stump and managed to snag four flowers and a seed pod. Grinning triumphant, she drew up and looked over her shoulder to call to her comrades on her success-

Only for a bolt of lightning to land right near her ass.

Normally, the storms that followed her around were fairly easy to manage. In clear weather, for example, she had to actually summon a cloud or two to get the zips and zaps of electricity to handle enemies at the fringes of her concentration. Here, in the Mire, the weather seemed to magnify her abilities and offer less discrimination, sending powerful arcs to foxes, bears lumbering by, rams, and here, for example, to a little toad with the poor luck to be brushing the heel of her boot while she knelt. 

Despite her affinity, the bolt was surprising and powerful enough to knock her into the water. 

Immediately, decay filled her mouth, the water nasty as she shouted in shock, only to feel rotting fingers tangle in her hair. Panic set in as hands closed around her ankles, her thighs, and when a powerful, living,  _Qunari_ hand wrenched her from the water with a grunt, Aia was not ashamed; she wound her arms and legs around Iron Bull and shouted to the others to forget the undead, let's get to camp-


End file.
